


Some Things Don't Stay Buried

by KatmaTui



Category: Black Panther (2018), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen, Not Canon Compliant, Post-Black Panther (2018), What can I say I like a good bad guy, What-If, updated as I go
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-16
Updated: 2019-02-19
Packaged: 2019-04-23 21:51:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 21,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14341632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KatmaTui/pseuds/KatmaTui
Summary: I hate when an actor does an amazing job bringing a villain to life and then they're killed off. So here's my idea for how Klaue might still be alive and able to pop up later.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Narobia is an African country in the Marvel universe.

  The first sensation Ulysses Klaue felt was pressure--he felt like he was suffocating. The weight briefly masked the pain that seared through his abdomen and chest. He struggled to breathe. And when he did manage a breath, his nostrils were filled with the scents of plastic, dirt, and sweat. Panic gripped him. Even as he told himself not to worry, he could feel the fear set in his chest. His heart beat faster. Pumped bolts of pain through his midsection. He made an attempt to move and discovered he could push out the plastic around him. Dirt spilled in onto his forehead. He groaned as he worked his arm up and got his hand through an opening in whatever he was wrapped in. He found a bungee cord and dug around for where the ends might be hooked together. More dirt spilled in as he jerked the cord apart far enough to get his entire arm out. The dirt above him was loose, thankfully, and he shoved his hand up through the cool earth. When his hand broke through he felt the warmth of the sun and a breeze against it. Desperation slammed the panic down as he struggled to pull himself free. His chest burned with every twist and lunge. Half out of his shallow grave, Klaue surveyed his surroundings. Grassland died out into sand with the outline of a small village. He picked up enough detail to know it was Wakandan architecture.  
  "Kak!"  
  He spat the word out and slumped against the dirt around him. His vision doubled and everything dimmed to black.

  He was walking. No, he corrected himself, it was more like a stagger--doubled over and with his one full arm to hold his stomach. He felt the familiar cold square of his cell phone in his hand. Overhead a Wakandan jet screamed past. He dropped to his knees in the tall grass and sucked in a gasp as the contact sent a shockwave of nausea up through his body. He fell over onto his back and looked for better cover. The grass would have to do.  
  A second jet sliced through the sky and fired on the first one, destroying it. He forced himself up straighter for a better look. A small army of men on rhinos rode away from the village--and farther away from him. He fought his way back up on to his feet--and coughed up bile and blood as he did. He looked down at his phone. At some point, he'd pulled up Google maps and had gotten himself headed in the direction of Narobia. He had people in Narobia. Klaue nodded to himself and got back to the slow painful steps toward his destination. Everything went blurry.

  He wasn't sure how long he had been walking, or even if he'd blacked out and fallen over at any point. He'd left grassland for full desert and a setting sun. Someone walked next to him. Klaue turned. T'Chaka walked along at his side. The older man stared ahead. He wore a nicely tailored Western business suit. His feet were bare.  
  "So this my Hell? Ja?" Klaue asked him. "I get to the border and I'm back in my grave and get to do it all again? Something like that? Or do I just never get to the border?" T'Chaka said nothing. "No talking? I don't get to at least talk to someone? I mean I can think of better company to get stuck with for eternity...actually, I can think of worse company too. A lot worse. You'll do I suppose. But no talking, eh?"  
  "You run your mouth enough for both of us Ulysses," T'Chaka said.  
  "Insults. Insults for eternity." Klaue nodded. "Could be worse. Or am I in your Hell and I get to be your torture in the afterlife?"  
  Klaue cackled--and instantly regret it. He held his arm tighter against his body and groaned. He spat out more blood.  
  "You're not dead Ulysses," T'Chaka said.  
  "So what is this then? Are you haunting me now?" Klaue asked. "Some sort of Bob Marley bullshit?"  
  "I think you mean Jacob Marley," T'Chaka corrected.  
  "Wat was dit?" Klaue asked.  
  "Jacob Marley." T'Chaka repeat.  
  Klaue stopped and forced himself to turn for a better look at T'Chaka.  
  "What did I say?" he asked.  
  "You said Bob." T'Chaka informed him. "Big difference."  
  "Ja! I would say so." Klaue thought about it and laughed. Each chuckle sent a fresh pulse of pain through his middle. "Although I might watch that version!" Laughter took over. He couldn't stop. Tears blurred his vision. His breath turned to gasps. "Fok!"  
  Klaue passed out.

  He knew he'd been walking for awhile. Google maps told him he was closer to the border. It was dusk and he was still miles away, but closer at least. There was nothing but desert around him. And T'Chaka. He still walked alongside Klaue--silent again, the older man stared straight ahead.  
  "Twenty questions?" Klaue asked him.  
  "What are you going to do with the rest of your life Ulysses?" T'Chaka asked him.  
  "That's not really how you play the game--but it is a question and I'll take anything to keep me occupied at this point, so I will allow it," Klaue said. He staggered to keep himself upright. “The answer to that is that I plan to retire.”  
  T'Chaka chuckled.  
  “No you don't,” he told Klaue.  
  “No, no, I mean it,” Klaue said. “Between everything I've made over the years and the fact that no one has come to look for all the money Robbie the Robot dropped into my account, I can very comfortably buy a nice beach house on some tropical island and kill my liver. Hell, I can get a transplant and kill another one if I want. But I'm done. Very. Very. Done."  
  "You could also do some good with what you have," T'Chaka said.  
  "No, I can't," Klaue said. "We both know I'm a selfish bastard. Just like you."  
  "I'm not like you," T'Chaka said.  
  "Bullshit you aren't," Klaue said. "The only difference is that I'm willing admit to it. You could have done some good with what you have. Had." He gestured with his stump back towards Wakanda. "But, no, you kept it all to yourself."  
  "I had..."  
  Klaue stopped him.  
  "You had your country to think about!" He said to T'Chaka. "You had your people to think about! You had your principles. And your moral high ground. And your obligations. You had your traditions! You had BULLSHIT!"  
  Pain shot through Klaue's chest. He screamed and dropped to his knees. Klaue doubled over until his forehead touched the cracked earth. He closed his eyes.  
  "You should conserve your energy Ulysses," T'Chaka told him.  
  "You had no principles and no moral high ground," Klaue said. "Not once you did business with me."


	2. Chapter 2

"You should get up Ulysses," T'Chaka told him. "Your people are coming."  
Klaue tried to swallow but there was no saliva left--there was the faint taste of blood. He rolled to his side and tried to sit up unsuccessfully. He spat a stream of obscenities into the sand--which did nothing more than kick it up into his mouth and sent him into a coughing fit that brought tears to his eyes. Through the blur, he could see something in the direction of Narobia had created a cloud of dust that slowly rolled towards him. He turned his head to the other side and found T'Chaka. The older man stood with his back to Klaue and looked back at the star-speckled sky over Wakanda.  
"No comment?" Klaue asked him. "Not going to tell me you were doing the right thing? No something something what's right for Wakanda?"  
"They have your GPS but they won't cross the border," T'Chaka told him. "They'll stop at the edge and even if they can see you, you know they'll be too scared to risk it. You should get moving."  
"So no comment then," Klaue said. He smiled.  
Klaue pushed himself up off the ground, staggered sideways and nearly fell over again. He righted himself and moved towards the cloud of dust. T'Chaka turned around and walked to Klaue's side. The mercenary began to topple sideways after his first steps. On instinct, he reached out for T'Chaka to steady himself, but his hand went right through the late King. Klaue hit the ground again. Pain splintered through his body. He screamed and cursed before he pushed himself back up again.  
"You don't have much farther to go," T'Chaka told him.  
"Does your family know you killed your brother?" Klaue asked him.  
"You make it sound like I planned that," T'Chaka said.  
"No, I know you planned for him to just roll over and toddle back home for his King," Klaue tried not to laugh. "You didn't expect that he'd grown a pair while he was gone."  
He tried not to laugh but he couldn't help it. Pain radiated through his chest and stomach. It devolved into a coughing fit and ended with the taste of fresh blood in his mouth.  
"You should conserve your energy," T'Chaka said.  
"Your new found concern is touching, your highness," Klaue said. He spat blood onto the sand.  
"He had obligations..."  
Klaue didn't let him finish.  
"What were those exactly?" Klaue asked. "To be your lackey? To be at your beck and call his whole life just because he wasn't lucky enough to be born first? Was he not supposed to find his own purpose in life?"  
T'Chaka balled up his fists and growled.  
"He had a purpose!" T'Chaka yelled. "That woman..."  
"Oh yes, let's blame the woman," Klaue said. "The...what are we calling her? The whore? The temptress who spread her legs and wooed him with her feminine...siren...call...bullshit? Oldest cop out in the book, mate."  
"Shut up Ulysses," T'Chaka said.  
"That's more like it!" Klaue said. "I have finally hit a nerve."  
Klaue waived his hand in the air and teetered off course. A wave of nausea and dizziness put him on his knees. He fixed his gaze on the now larger dust cloud and got himself headed in its direction again.  
"You try to make this sound like something it wasn't," T'Chaka said.  
The former King stopped and stared back at Wakanda for a moment.  
"And you still want to rationalize and excuse everything you did," Klaue said. "You're fokken dead my friend. Time to confess your sins! Air all the dirty laundry. You set up your own brother..."  
"I didn't set him up," T'Chaka cut him off.  
"You blew up your own damn people instead of giving them a trial..."  
"They were traitors to Wakanda," T'Chaka said. "They knew there would be consequences."  
"But instead of arresting them and convicting them in court before an execution," Klaue said, "you chose to just execute them. You made traitors into martyrs to cover up that there was anything wrong. To cover up that any citizen questioned how Wakanda related to the rest of the world."  
"I chose to spare their families...and children...the shame," T'Chaka said.  
"You chose to ignore your own laws for casting out the families of traitors," Klaue. "You get to pick and choose what laws you ignore and enforce. So random citizens get spared, but your own brother and his followers get executed without even a trial."  
"His plan was already in motion." T'Chaka said. "I had to do something to protect Wakanda."  
"A year of planning and no actual steps toward carrying through with it is hardly a plan in motion," Klaue asked.  
"I had to do something," T'Chaka said.  
"Ja, you really did do something. You killed him, and you abandoned his kid....that's who that is right?" Klaue waived back into Wakanda. "He had the tattoo. Did you not think your brother would have told his kid about Wakanda?"  
"He shouldn't have told anyone..."  
"Even his own kid?" Klaue asked. "What? Was he not Wakandan enough?"  
"Don't be stupid."  
"You really know how to take care of your family," Klaue continued. "So if you'd known the kid knew, would you have killed him too? Or maybe kidnapped him and whisked him away to Wakanda and told him he couldn't see his mother anymore? Lied to him about what happened to his father?"  
"No...I.."  
"No matter what, you were screwed the minute you shoved those little claws of yours into your brother," Klaue said. "And you get to carry all the secrets to the grave. Good plan I guess. Even if it is going to leave your country a smoldering pile of rubble. That's what's going to happen, you know that right?"  
"This is not what I wanted," T'Chaka said.  
"Well it's what you got," Klaue said.  
"I had to protect Wakanda," T'Chaka said.  
"It doesn't mean that the way you did it was the right way," Klaue told him.  
"You aren't without guilt in this Ulysses," T'Chaka said.  
"I never claimed to be!" Klaue said.  
"Tell me something?" T'Chaka asked. "Do you ever regret the things you've done?"  
"Sure," Klaue looked down at his ruined left arm. "Doing business with a psychotic robot for one," Klaue said.  
"I'm being serious," T'Chaka said.  
"Ja, so am I," Klaue said.  
"Are you saying you don't regret our deal?" T'Chaka asked him. "All that vibranium did was bring you trouble."  
"Technically, all it did was bring you trouble too," Klaue said. "How much do you regret?"  
"I have regrets," T'Chaka looked back at Wakanda again. "Sometimes being a King has a higher price than you ever would have expected. But you learn to live with that weight."  
"Stubborn, even in the end," Klaue said.  
Klaue could make out the truck now. A WWII era deuce and a half that had been repainted in desert camouflage and had the logo for a conservation habitat emblazoned on the doors and hood. Klaue wasn't sure how he knew, but he was sure he had stepped over the border. He dropped to his knees and face planted into the desert.  
"This is the last time I'm going to kick you out of my country Ulysses," T'Chaka told him. "Goodbye."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a lot of trouble getting this chapter formatted for some reason.


	3. Chapter 3

There were holes in the canopy of the truck; one of which was large enough for a decent view of the night sky. Klaue's head was jostled from side to side as the truck rumbled along. There was an occasional bump in the road that bounced him around and caused him to groan. He felt warm but still shivered from the breeze that slipped in through a flap that hadn't been tied down properly. Whoever sat in the back with him made no attempt to help. Klaue stared at the man's feet. British Knights tennis shoes. He hadn't seen a pair of those in years. His gaze moved up the African robes and settled on the man's face. N'Jobu. 

“What did you mean,” N'Jobu asked him, “when you said he set me up?”

Klaue smiled. 

“Of course you'd be here too.” Klaue said. “And I think you know what I meant.” 

N'Jobu nodded slowly. One corner of his lip curled up.

“I had a brief moment where I questioned you showing up,” he said to Klaue. “You knowing who I really was. Offering me a deal that seemed too good to be true. You didn't have buyers lined up did you?”

“Not a one,” Klaue told him. A wave of nausea hit him. He clamped his eyes shut. “It was nothing personal. Just business.”

“What kind of deal did he offer you?” N'Jobu said.

“I got to keep all of the vibranium,” Klaue said. 

“That wasn't much of a deal,” N'Jobu told him.

“My men made off with a lot more vibranium than you knew about,” Klaue said.

“Why?” N'Jobu asked. He shook his head.

“He was worried about your plans,” Klaue said.

“No, I know that much,” N'Jobu said. “I want to know why you would take a job like that.”

“My Dad and my Uncle had sued Wakanda through the World Court for what happened with my grandfather,” Klaue told him. “Your father dragged that out, kept getting things postponed.”

“I remember my father talking about that case,” N'Jobu said. “Your grandfather was part of a group that entered Wakanda illegally...”

“They were lost,” Klaue interrupted. 

“They had weapons,” N'Jobu continued.

“Because they were hunting,” Klaue added.

N'Jobu stared out the back of the truck for a moment.

“We can argue who was more in the wrong until the sun rises,” N'Jobu told him. “And neither of us were there, so we'll never know what really happened.”

“True,” Klaue conceded.

“People on both sides ended up dead,” N'Jobu said. “What does that have to do with the deal my brother made with you?”

“T'Chaka continued to drag the case out,” Klaue told him. “But the court started to push for things to move along. By that time my Dad and Uncle were gone and it turned out they had named me as some sort of successor, so the court wanted to know what I planned to do. T'Chaka offered me a deal in exchange for letting the case drop.”

“Why settle?” N'Jobu asked him.

“At that point I had already made a name for myself,” Klaue said. “I had warrants out and I would have had to show up for at least the first court proceeding.”

“Which most likely would have resulted in your arrest,” N'Jobu said.

“Exactly,” Klaue replied. 

N'Jobu shook his head again. He sighed.

“And your contact in Wakanda who was willing to sell out our country for a paycheck?” N'Jobu asked. “The one that I so eagerly directed my people to work with?”

“Hand picked by your brother,” Klaue said. “One hundred percent Dora Milaje.”

“The explosion at the border wasn't you, like my brother said, was it?” N'Jobu said. 

“The Dora Milje took care of that,” Klaue replied. “On your brother's orders.” 

“He took out almost everyone who followed me...” N'Jobu said. “...who believed in me. They put their trust in me. I got them all killed. Simply because they wanted to do more for the world.”

A tear streamed down his face. He looked away and wiped his eyes.

“I am sorry about the ones who died. They might have been breaking the law, but they deserved their day in court,” Klaue said.

“My brother couldn't allow that,” N'Jobu said. “There would have been too many questions. A trial would have given my argument a platform.”

“We both know he couldn't have that,” Klaue said.

The truck hit another bump. Klaue's head slammed against the floor. He cursed at the fresh jolt of pain that shot through his body.

“All that vibranium....” N'Jobu shook his head again. 

“All mine to keep,” Klaue said. He snort a laugh. “Aside from the bit I was to deliver to you so you could show off on your end.”

N'Jobu nodded.

“And conveniently have in my possession when my brother showed up,” he said.

“Right,” Klaue said.

The truck continued to rumble along. Klaue listened to the hum of the tires against the road. The occasional tink of a rock against the underside of the vehicle. N'Jobu motioned at the brand mark on Klaue's neck.

“You really went all out to pull your part off,” he said.

Klaue laughed again. He held his arm tightly across his chest in an attempt to lessen the pain, but it didn't help.

“Your brother left that part out when he filled me in on the plan,” Klaue said. “In fact, once they had me in custody I was sure he had decided to renege on our deal.” 

“Did he let you out or did you really escape?” N'Jobu asked.

“The minimal guards that your brother left behind after he left were instructed to turn a blind eye,” Klaue said. “Other than that I was able to get out on my own.”

They rode on in silence. Klaue felt sweat roll off him as he shivered. 

“You're almost there,” N'Jobu told him.

“Where is that exactly?” Klaue asked. His teeth chattered.

“A Doctors Without Borders camp,” N'Jobu said. 

“But I'm in Narobia?” 

“Yes,” N'Jobu confirmed. 

“How am I even alive?” Klaue asked.

“I'm guessing because you're too stubborn to die,” N'Jobu said. He laughed.

Klaue smiled.

“How...” Klaue couldn't concentrate enough to finish the sentence.

“I think you would have to ask my son that question,” N'Jobu told him.

“Wat?” Klaue asked. 

The brakes squealed as the truck ground to a halt. Klaue groaned as the back end shimmied and jostled him around. He heard voices yelling but everything sounded too far away and he couldn't make out what was said. Beams of light from floodlights shot through the holes in the cover over him. He clamped his eyes shut again.

“Good luck Klaue,” N'Jobu told him.

“Wat het jy...what did you mean by that?” Klaue called out.

No one answered as he slipped into unconsciousness.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took so long to get a new chapter up!

Klaue sucked in a deep breath and bolted upright. As soon as he did it he realized his mistake and clutched his belly. Pain radiated through his stomach and chest. He felt something poke into his arm and winced as he flopped back onto the bed—and sent a fresh wave of pain through his midsection. 

“You rip out my stitches again and I'm not putting anymore back in you,” a woman's voice announced.

She stepped in to his line of sight while he examined where an IV was taped down to his arm. She reached down to make sure he hadn't pulled it out before going back to whatever she'd been doing with his IV. Klaue followed the clear tube up to the bag and watched her inject something from a syringe into a port on the IV tubing. She wore blue surgical scrubs and had her graying hair tied up in a bun at the back of her head.

“Wat is dit?” He asked her.

She cocked her head to one side and stared at him for a second. She held up the syringe.

“Pain killer,” she told him. “You're lucky. We're running low on supplies, at least we still have some of this.” Her accent was American...maybe Canadian? She stared at him again. “You do speak English, yes?”

“Ja natuurlik,” he replied. She frowned. He realized what he'd done. “Yes, I speak English.”

“Good,” she replied. “Now that you're more coherent, we can work on getting you out of here. I'm willing to give you two more days and then I want you gone.”

“You're going to kick me out of a hospital?” Klaue asked. 

“I have a pretty strong suspicion you aren't the type of person we need to be associated with, Mr...Smith.” She said. Her comment was followed with an eye roll.

“How long have I been here?” he asked.

“Four days,” she replied. “You had a pretty bad infection on top of everything else. This is the most lucid you've been since you arrived.”

“I need my cell phone,” he told her.

“I'll have your associate bring it to you. He has all of your personal effects,” she said.

“My associate?” Klaue asked.

“Yes, Mr...,” she sighed, “Jones. He and another man showed up the morning after you did. The people who brought you in, by the way, dropped you like a hot potato. They stuck around long enough to unload you and shove a wad of money in an orderly's hands. You have some pretty fantastic friends there...”

“They're not my friends,” Klaue said. He didn't bother to explain any further. His eyelids grew heavy. “What happens if I'm not ready to leave in two days?” He asked her.

“Oh, you'll be ready,” she said.

“What if I don't want to leave?”

“I will be forced to call the authorities,” she said. “They're shit and I really hate dealing with them, but if it gets you out of my hair, I'll do it.”

“I'm still in Narobia, ja?” He asked.

“Yes.”

Klaue smiled.

“The authorities won't be a problem,” he told her.

She huffed.

“Of course they wouldn't be.” She said. “Well if you've got THAT kind of arrangement with them, maybe you can get them to do something about the gang that keeps hitting our supply convoys. Make yourself useful,” she said. “And while you're at it, please tell Mr. Jones to stop harassing my nurses.” 

She walked to the door and shoved it open. Bright light flooded into the tent and turned her into a blur. Klaue blinked repeatedly and turned his head away.

“Send Mr. Jones over,” Klaue said. “And I will have a talk with him.”

“Thank you.”

The door slapped shut behind her.

“I don't think she likes you.” A voice announced.

Klaue's mouth went dry. He didn't need to turn to see who it was. He knew the voice. He turned anyway to face the man. Killmonger sat on a counter at the back of the room. A pair of scuffed up combat boots paired up with a Black Panther outfit similar to T'Challa's. Klaue tried to sit up. He looked back at the door. It seemed like it was miles away. He flopped one leg left over the side of the bed. Killmonger laughed. Klaue's brain kicked in to gear and reminded him that the doctor hadn't addressed anyone else when she had been in the room. Klaue laughed.

“That's right,” Killmonger said. “You don't need to get all panicky again. I ain't even here.”

“So he won then,” Klaue said. He worked to get himself settled back into the bed and relaxed.

“Yeah, but I think I might have won too,” Killmonger said. He smiled. “I'm feelin' like there are some big changes coming to Wakanada.”

“Congratulations,” Klaue said. He closed his eyes. “Now, if you're done with your unfinished business on Earth, fokof.” 

“Why you gotta be like that?” Killmonger asked. He jumped down off the counter and held his arms out wide. 

“Well, let's see...” Klaue said, “you set me up. You shot me. Twice. Killed Limbani and your girlfriend. Buried me alive in the desert...did I leave anything out?” 

“Now you know how it feels to be set up,” Killmonger told him.

“I have been set up many times,” Klaue told him. “Hazard of the job. But I'm guessing that comment was more of a way for you to let me know...”

Killmonger didn't let him finish.

“That I know you set up my father,” he told Klaue. “You'd be right. I wasn't planning on killing you, I knew that shit would wear off and you were in shallow enough to dig out easy. But now that I know what you did I'm sorry I didn't pop one between your eyes.” He leaned over and settled into a spot inches from Klaue's face. “And here I went and did you a great big favor ,” Killmonger said. 

“How do you figure that?” Klaue asked.

“Limbani. Your boy got flipped by Interpol,” Killmonger told him. “He had a nice file on you ready to go to his handler when he got back to Johannesburg. All on a thumb drive, which you will find in with your stuff.”

“Wat?” Klaue asked. He shook his head.

“For real,” Killmonger told him. “He liked his girls young. Real young. Got himself picked up in Rio after a delivery last year. They gave him a choice, be their spy or go to jail. So he sold you out.”

“Bliksem,” Klaue said.

“I hear you,” Killmonger said. 

He sat himself down on the floor next to Klaue's bed.

“What about your girlfriend?” Klaue asked. 

“To be honest, she wasn't really my girlfriend,” Killmonger said. “I wouldn't have taken her to Wakanda with me. I planned to cut her loose, but that would have come back to haunt me later on. Your little trick gave me a good out.”

“Well you're a right bastard aren't you?” Klaue told him.

“Takes one to know one,” Killmonger said.

The younger man walked out of Klaue's line of sight. He turned in the direction he'd gone and found himself alone again. There was a hard burst of knuckles against the door frame.

“Come in,” Klaue said.


	5. Chapter 5

Klaue stared up at the ceiling and counted backwards from ten. The pain killer had kicked in and he really just wanted to take a nap. But there was a pressing matter of nurse harassment that needed to be addressed with “Mr. Jones”. It wasn't going anything like he had planned. All he'd asked the younger man was one simple question.

“First of all...” Klaue said slowly, “pull your damn pants back up. Second, why would you think you needed to actually show me that!? You couldn't just describe it? Is that what you've been doing to these nurses? Nobody wants to see anyone's ass out of the blue like that!”

“I'm sorry boss,” Jones said. 

A moment of still silence hung over them, finally broken by the metallic clatter of a belt buckle and pull of a zipper. Klaue gave him a moment and then risked a look in Jones' direction. The younger man looked down at the floor and dug his hands into his pockets. Klaue sighed.

“Was that a human bite?” He asked Jones. “You know, what? Never mind I...”

“Yeah,” Jones laughed. A smile beamed across his face as he pulled himself up to his full height and puffed out his chest. “It is.”

“...don't want to know.” Klaue sighed again. 

Jones cleared his throat and pulled his hands from his pockets so he could rub them together as he spoke.

“So...do you think...” 

“It's infected?” Klaue finished. “Yes I do. You should definitely have a doctor look at that. Hopefully that's the only thing she infected.” 

Jones looked confused.

“Condom. Did you wear a damn condom?” Klaue asked. “Fokenwil, why am I having this conversation? If you don't care if your dick rots off why should I? Just have a doctor look at that. Where's my phone?”

Jones turned around and grabbed the small messenger bag he'd set on the counter shortly after he'd arrived. He brought the bag to Klaue and set it on the bed next to him. Klaue found the clothes he'd been wearing inside a plastic bag. He opened the bag and searched the pockets. Just as Killmonger had said, he found a thumb drive. It was tucked into one of the breast pockets on his shirt. Klaue tossed that on the bed, dug through the bag again, and found his phone.

“I charged it up right after we got here,” Jones told him. “I figured you'd want it.”

“Who else is here?” Klaue asked.

“Daggert,” Jones said. “Oh but everyone here thinks his name is Johnson.”

“Why?” Klaue asked. He closed his eyes and shook his head.

“Because that's the name I came up with the fastest,” Jones replied.

“I apparently need to work on fake names with you,” Klaue said. “Does he have a laptop?”

Klaue tossed the bag back to Jones. He felt the IV pull and hissed at the sting. 

“Yeah,” Jones said. “I'll have him bring it over.”

“Later,” Klaue said. “I'm going to take a bit...” Klaue laid back in the bed, he clutched the phone and thumb drive tightly in his hand. “Have a doctor look at that damn thing.”

The door creaked open.

“Somebody said doctor?”

The doctor who'd been in earlier appeared in the open doorway. She finished a bottle of water and tossed it in to a recycle can near the door.

“He needs a doctor,” Klaue said. 

“Ah...Mr. Jones,” she said. And followed that up with a heavy sigh. “What seems to be the problem?”

Through half closed eyes, Klaue could see Jones start to go for his belt again.

“Jesus Christus, tell her the problem you fokken moroon!” 

Klaue covered his eyes with his hand. The cell phone felt cool against his skin.

“Oh...right...” Jones stammered and cleared his throat a few times. “I have a bite that might be...”

“Is.” Klaue corrected.

“Is, infected,” Jones finished.

“We can take a look at that,” she said. “Insect or animal?”

“Uh...” Jones decided now to be embarrassed by the circumstances.

“Human.” Klaue filled in the gap. 

“Ohhh-kay,” the doctor replied. She looked at Jones and jerked her thumb back over her shoulder. “Head over to the triage tent, I'll get someone to take a look at it.”

“Thank you,” Jones mumbled. He ducked his head down and made a B line for the door. 

“That should fix the issue with the nurses,” Klaue told her.

“Thank...you,” she replied. She looked around the room and cleared her throat. “I'm heading out for the rest of the afternoon,” she continued. “I'll have someone come by later with dinner. It's a restricted diet, nothing fancy. We'll see how you handle that and maybe get you something with a little more substance in the morning. And I realize earlier I may have said something about you...doing something about the gang attacking our convoys....I would prefer that you disregarded that comment. We don't need any trouble.” She rocked on her heels. “I'm Dr. Bates by the way. I don't think I mentioned that earlier. Anyway, I'll check in on you when I get back in tonight.”

She didn't wait for Klaue to reply. Dr. Bates swiveled on a heel and was out the door before his brain even had a chance to formulate anything remotely resembling a response. 

 

The door to Klaue's tent had gotten a lot of use in the hour he'd been up. A few nurses had checked on him, the man everyone knew as Johnson had dropped off his laptop bag (as well as grumbled about his temporary pseudonym), dinner had been delivered, Jones (now with a slight limp) stopped by to see if he needed anything, and another doctor had checked in on him. With each new interruption Klaue could see the sun was working it's way down for the day. The harsh desert sun softened to glow as the activity of the hospital slowed to a trickle of occasional passers by. Even the tent felt darker inside despite the bright lights overhead. 

Klaue pushed the tray of empty bland broth and gelatin bowls away from the bed and picked the laptop back up. He plugged the thumb drive back in and went back to randomly opening the files. Limbani had recorded phone calls, copied emails, scanned documents, and had even managed to get audio and video of the initial interview Klaue had with Killmonger and his girlfriend Linda. 

“He seemed like such a nice guy,” Linda said as she sat down on the bed next to Klaue. 

The bed didn't move--nor did she make an indentation. 

“Your turn?” Klaue asked. 

He stayed focused on the laptop's screen. She leaned in closer and watched the meeting unfold. They'd met in Hyde Park in London the first time.

“That was Erik's idea,” Linda said. “I always wanted to see it. All the times I'd had to fly through London to meet a handler there and I never got to do any sightseeing. He took me to all the touristy places before and after the meeting. He was good. He really made me feel like I'd made a connection with him no one else could. I thought we had something.” 

Klaue's mouth went dry. His muscles clenched and caused his stomach to spasm. He wrapped his arm across his middle and licked his lips. He stared at the door to the tent.

“I'm sorry,” He told her. 

Klaue tried to think of the last time he'd genuinely apologized to anyone. He drew a blank. He tried to think of the last time he'd really regretted the damage done to anyone that had been between he and his goal. Nothing. 

She stood up and walked towards the foot of the bed. He decided to face her. She wore the outfit she'd died in. The bullet hole in the center of her forehead was dry. Her shirt was spattered with her blood. She smiled.

“I know,” she said. “You're kind of a horrible human being, but...I know you mean that.”

“I didn't think he'd actually shoot you,” Klaue said.

“Yeah...me either,” she said. “I'm such a...was...such a fool. Letting myself think I'd be a queen one day. I've seen him use people. I knew he was using you the whole time. I let myself think he would never use me like that. You don't like this do you?” Linda asked him.

“No,” he replied.

“It's because you can't control it,” she told him. “You don't like it when you can't control the situation.”

“That's not it,” Klaue said. He stared up at the tent roof. “I just want to know why this is happening.”

“Poor life choices?” 

Klaue jumped at the voice. And then cursed. He turned and found Dr. Bates had returned. She leaned against the door frame. He hadn't heard the door open and she hadn't let it close behind her yet. She walked the rest of the way in to the tent. The door slapped shut behind her.

“How long were you there?” Klaue asked. 

He glanced around. Linda was gone. 

“If you were getting in touch with a higher power,” she told him, “I wouldn't know. I heard you talking, but all I caught was the why it was happening bit.” 

She picked up chart and flipped through it.

“Good,” he said. 

He shut down the laptop and snagged the thumb drive. 

“And how have your accommodations and dinner been today Mr. Smith?” She asked as she looked over the tray.

“I've had worse,” Klaue told her.

“We must have the same travel agent.” She chuckled. 

Klaue smirked as he eased himself into his back.

“So do I get real food in the morning?” He asked her.

“As long as you don't get sick tonight, I don't see why not.” Dr. Bates replied. “It won't be much. Like I said, our supply convoy gets hit between the airport and here pretty regularly.” She closed her eyes and mumbled a string of expletives. “Nothing for you to worry about though.”

“How far is the airport from here?” Klaue asked. 

“It's...about a three hour drive,” Bates replied. “Like I said earlier, we don't need any trouble out here?”

Klaue shrugged.

“I was just wondering.” He said. “I'd like an idea of how long I'll be stuck on the road when I leave.”

“Right.” The doctor scrutinized Klaue. 

Klaue made no other comment. He closed his eyes and settled himself in for more sleep. He kept his cell phone and the thumb drive clutched tightly in his hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm picturing this hospital set up like something out of the M.A.S.H. TV show.


	6. An Interlude

Three Days Later  
CIA Science & Technology Field Office  
Luxor, Egypt 

 

Agent Everett Ross did his best to look like a man recovering from recent injuries as he made his way across the surveillance room to the corner office normally occupied by the office's agent in charge. He closed the door behind him before he picked up the phone and thanked the agent who'd transferred him the call. The phone beeped that line one was holding a call. 

Ross did a quick run through of the loose narrative he and T'Challa had worked out before he left. As long as there weren't too many questions it should all be over and done with quickly. Ross exhaled and nodded to himself before hitting the phone line.

“This is Agent Ross,” he said.

“Agent Ross, how are you feeling?” The Assistant Director's voice boomed through the receiver.

Ross pulled the phone away from his ear and winced as he stretched the cord so he could sit on the small worn couch in front of the interior window facing the surveillance room. He glanced at the agents in the other room. They'd gone back to scouring footage from security cameras around Egypt. 

“I'm feeling much better, sir,” Ross replied. “Thank you for checking in on me.”

“I'm a little confused, to be honest,” his superior replied.

“How so, sir?” Ross asked.

“The report I had from South Korea had you on death's door,” the Assistant Director said. “The report I just received from the field office has you bruised and battered. That's an amazing recovery.”

“It's really nothing too amazing sir,” Ross said. “Things weren't nearly as bad as everyone thought. Luckily minor injuries from the explosion.”

“So you weren't shot?” The Assistant Director asked.

“I was shot, sir, but my vest took the bullet,” Ross told him. “A little bruising and that's it.”

“I didn't realize you were wearing a vest,” the senior agent replied.

Ross could hear paper ruffling. Then the clicking of a keyboard.

“I changed my mind at the last minute and decided to wear one,” Ross said. “With everything happening so fast I never had a chance to take it off.”

“But you were unconscious and the report says that King T'Challa was quite concerned about your injuries,” his superior continued.

“Right. That. Well, I did hit my head on the way down. I hit the corner of a desk,” Ross said.

“Hmm,” the Assistant Director replied. “Why did King T'Challa get involved?”

Ross closed his eyes and tapped at his forehead. 

“Well...let's keep this under wraps for now,” Ross said. “but the woman I took the bullet for is the future Queen of Wakanda. King T'Challa felt indebted to me and responsible for my care. He took over the situation before anyone really had a chance to question things. Sir.”

“Ah. Makes sense,” the Assistant Director said. 

Thank God. Ross breathed a sigh of relief and opened his eyes. 

“Well since you have clearance for travel,” the Assistant Director replied, “we'll have you fly out in the morning. Once you're back here we'll go over your field notes and debrief you. More than likely you'll get another physical and I think you should take next week off. Get some rest.”

“Thank you, sir,” Ross said.

“One more question though,” his superior said.

Ross grimaced and looked back out into the main room. He absently glanced over the computer monitors full of video feeds from around the country.

“What's that sir?” Ross asked.

“Why are we keeping that the future Queen was there under wraps?” the Assistant Director asked.

“It's not so much that she was there,” Ross said. He stretched for anything. We didn't cover that one, he realized. “It's that...they haven't...officially...announced their engagement yet.”

“Why not?” the AD asked.

Ross slumped in his seat and shook his head.

“It's...a...custom?” he offered. “It's not...acceptable...to...announce an engagement so close to...”

“So close to the death of the previous King,” the Assistant Director said. “Ah.”

Ross could picture the Assistant Director leaning back in his chair as he nodded his head and drummed his fingers on his desk.

“Yes. That,” Ross said. “You hit the nail right on the...uh...”

He caught it out of the corner of his eye. A brief image on one of the screens. Part of his brain said he was seeing things, but Ross continued to concentrate on the screen. Then on the screen next to the one he'd fixated on, a group of men were walking through an airport. One of the men kept his head down and walked slowly, one arm tucked over his stomach.

“Ross are you still there?” the Assistant Director asked.

“Yes, sir. Sorry, sir. I need to call you back,” Ross said.

“Are you OK?” his superior asked.

“Fine, I'm fine,” Ross said. “I've been helping the team here go over video footage and I think I just found something. I'll call you back.”

“Right, right, sure...”

Ross hung up and rushed to the door. He flung it open. Everyone in the room turned their attention to him. He remembered he was supposed to be recovering and feigned the need for support from a cabinet just outside the office door. Ross waved a hand at the monitor.

“Play those back some,” Ross said. He made his way over to the consoles more slowly than he wanted.

“Sorry, which ones sir?” One of the technicians asked.

Ross checked the numbers in the corner of the screens. 

“Number 25 and 26,” he said.

The technician backtracked the footage. Ross concentrated on both screens.

“There stop,” Ross said. “Start playing. Please.”

The technician played the two screens at normal speed. The camera number 25 was fixed on a loading and unloading zone. The feed was color but tuned in a way that the colors were washed out and faded. A slightly blurred sign announced in several languages, including English, that this area was for passenger unloading only. 

Among the vehicles that pulled in was a black SUV with tinted windows. Three men poured out of the vehicle—two from each side at the back and the third from the front passenger side. One of the men who climbed out of the back moved slower than his counterparts. He had his right arm across his stomach and said something to the driver inside as the other two men removed three backpacks from the back of the SUV. The man who spoke to the driver had sunglasses on and a black knit cap pulled down tightly over his head. As Ross squinted and focused on what might be visible at the back of his neck, the man turned—his face, for seconds, was fully visible to the camera. There was no mistaking it. Even with the hat and sunglasses and with no tattoos visible, the bushy chin strap beard gave it away. Ross watched the men move through the front of the airport on the two feeds and disappear.

“I need anything you can get on that vehicle,” Ross told the technician. “And any other feed from that airport. What airport is that? How old is this?”

“Cairo sir,” the technician replied. “And it's from this morning.”

“OK,” Ross nodded. “Get me everything you can about those three. I need to know what airline they went out on. Anything you can get me, and a copy of everything you get, please.”

“Yes, sir.” The technician went back to work.

Ross moved back into the office and closed the door. He pulled out his cell phone and hit the newest entry in his address book. An entry that simply said “T”. The call was answered on the second ring.

“When I said feel free to call any time, I didn't think it would be so soon Agent Ross!” T'Challa answered. “Did you miss us already?”

Ross swore he could hear the smile in the King's voice.

“I would really like to be able to say that's why I'm calling,” Ross said.

There was a moment of silence and the sound of a door closing.

“What's going on?” T'Challa asked. “Are they giving you a hard time about the narrative we agreed to?”

“No, not that,” Ross said. “It's...look, I thought you said Klaue was dead.”

“He is.”

“Well then he got better because he went through the Cairo airport this morning,” Ross replied.

“That's not possible...are you certain?” T'Challa asked.

“I would bet my paycheck on it,” Ross said. “How reliable is your source? Would they lie about Klaue being dead?”

Another moment of silence.

“Until recently I wouldn't have questioned anything my source told me,” T'Challa said finally. “Now is another matter. But in the case of Ulysses Klaue, he had a vested interest in making sure Klaue was dead. He wouldn't have lied about that.”

“Then, Killmonger played your source,” Ross said. “But why? Why would he want Klaue alive?”

“I don't know,” T'Challa said. “And it could be that Killmonger thought he'd finished the job. Is it possible the person you saw wasn't Klaue?”

“I suppose it's possible, but my gut is telling me it's him,” Ross said.

“Get what information you can,” T'Challa said. “I'm going to verify that Klaue is still buried out there in the desert.”

“Already on it here,” Ross said.

Ross hung up and head back out into the main room.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Symkaria is an Eastern European country in the Marvel universe.

It was midafternoon when a small unmarked cargo plane touched down on the backside of Symkaria's Sablinova International Airport. The plane taxied in to a hanger situated between buildings belonging to Global Incorporated and Quinn Worldwide. The building, like the cargo plane, was unmarked. And like all of the activity that occurred on the back end of the airport, the arrival went unnoticed by the ground crews working the area.

For men like Ulysses Klaue the country was both a dream and a nightmare. Officials were easily bribed, false documents were technically not forgeries since a government official usually was the one drawing them up, and everyone had a price for turning a blind eye and/or their silence. It was also one of the most notoriously unstable countries in Eastern Europe. There were coups, revolutions, civil wars, ethnic cleansing, and violent protests by various groups of disgruntled citizens--all dispersed between periods of peace, prosperity and ravenous anti-corruption tribunals. The government official you'd been bribing for months could suddenly be the wrong one to bribe and throw you in jail for daring to bribe a government official. Apprehensive was Klaue's preferred approach to anything related to Symkaria. Which is why he'd spent the last two decades cultivating multiple contacts across the country's criminal, political, and military spectrum. Klaue never entered the country without checking in with several of his contacts at least a week before any attempt—and followed that up with an update while traveling. He liked to know what to expect and how low key he should play things. 

Waking up to find your plane was descending on to a runway in a country like Symkaria was not something that pleased Ulysses Klaue. To be fair, Klaue would have to admit to himself, they had probably told him beforehand but since he'd spent the last 24 hours following his long-standing recovery routine of ill-advisedly mixing pain killers with alcohol, it most likely never registered. 

Klaue paced up and down the inside of the plane. He stopped to check the hanger through the windows, on both sides, intermittently—and paid special attention to the thirty-year-old dark gray Chevy Suburban parked just inside the hanger near the doors. The SUV's tinted windows made it impossible to tell how many people might be inside. He'd tuned out Daggert and the rest the small crew on hand. 

Daggert had backed everyone off to let Klaue work through things. He'd worked for the mercenary long enough to know when paranoia had set in and that they had hit a point where they were prying at the tenuous grasp Klaue had on his self-control. If they kept trying to do anything, Klaue would explode and lash out. 

“Did you arrange for that?” Klaue asked Daggert finally. 

He waved his hand towards the SUV and kept pacing. 

“Yes,” Daggert said.

“What do you know about the driver?” Klaue asked.

“It's Kolchak,” Daggert said. 

“What if someone took him out?” Klaue asked. “They could have rigged it...you thought of all of that already.”

Klaue stopped pacing and exhaled slowly. 

“Uh-huh,” Daggert said. “I told Kolchak to stay in the car until we approached, and I was going to send the guys out to check on things? Is that OK?”

“Ja,” Klaue said. 

Daggert waved the rest of the crew away. As soon as they were gone, Klaue went back to pacing. He periodically tapped at the side of his head with the cellphone he held in an iron grip then; stopped several times to check and make sure the sound was still on. Since landing he'd made three calls to various contacts and had to leave messages for all of them. Daggert sat himself back down and checked his own phone.

“Why'd the kid stay in Cairo?” Klaue asked.

“Kid?” Daggert looked up from his phone. “Ah, our Mr. Jones. I told him to take a week off to heal up some.”

“Why?” Klaue asked. “He could have healed up here.”

“Because while you were basically comatose for the whole plane ride from Narobia and didn't have to listen to him moan and complain every time we hit turbulence, I did.” Daggert said. “I wasn't doing that again. And honestly, you're keyed up enough you might have deplanned him over the Mediterranean if you had to listen to him the whole flight.”

“Fair enough,” Klaue said. “And we pulled Pidgey from Cairo because...?”

“He's speaks Hungarian,” Daggert replied. “And since that's the second most common language here I figured he'd come in handy.”

“There are a lot of people who speak English,” Klaue said.

“You mean your contacts that will only deal with you?” Daggert asked.

Klaue grunted and rubbed at the stump of his left arm. There was movement outside of the plane that drew his attention to one of the windows. One of the crew made his way back to the plane.

“We're fine,” the younger man told Daggert.

Klaue racked his brain for the man's name. He'd made it a point to know the names of all of his crew but the last few years he'd been running on autopilot so much that Daggert had taken over a lot of the in-house business and Klaue had lost track of who had come and gone. Klaue watched the man bound back down the rear ramp of the plane.

“What's his name?” Klaue asked Daggert.

“Ray Hammond,” Daggert replied. “Good kid. Found him up in Las Vegas six months ago. He actually picked Chang's pocket while we were on the Strip. Whole thing was hilarious. I'll tell you the story later at the house.”

“What house?” Klaue asked. “We're not staying in a hotel?”

“No hotel and your house,” Daggert told him. 

“I own a house here now?” Klaue asked. 

“A very nice, albeit modest, estate half an hour outside of Aniana,” Daggert told him. "The pool's amazing by the way. And there's one of those maze gardens you seem to be convinced make a place classy. Plus a bowling alley in the basement.” 

“Wonderful,” Klaue said. “How much of my money was spent on this modest estate?”

“That thing was a steal,” Daggert said.

“Really?” Klaue asked.

“Yes, sir!” Daggert replied. “Uh..you aren't superstitious though...are you?”

Klaue sighed.

“Why?” He asked.

“Because,” Daggert explained, “after being executed by the Symkarian government, the previous owner is rumored to be buried around the estate.”

“Around?” Klaue said. “Not ON the estate? But AROUND?”

Daggert shrugged and rubbed at the back of his neck.

“It's just a rumor,” he told Klaue. 

 

The SUV containing Klaue and a few of his men left the airport via a service road. The men who remained at the airport would prep the plane in case Klaue might need to make a quick exit and, for now, stay at the hanger. Klaue sat in center of the back seat, book ended by Daggert and the man they called Pidgey. The Suburban stayed within the speed limit as it followed the winding road down the hills outside of the capital city of Aniana. They caught glimpses of the city through the trees on their way down. A sheet of smog float over most of the city and obscured the tops of the taller drab concrete buildings. The architecture was blocky and plain. Whites and grays with no decorative facets save for the occasional top designed to look like the tower of some long gone medieval castle. The skyline reminded Klaue of monochrome Lego. 

As they made their way closer to the city traffic picked up. They found quite a few military vehicles interspersed with the delivery trucks, school buses, and passenger cars on the road. Klaue gave the side eye to Daggert—who turned all of his attention to his cell phone again. Klaue instructed Kolchak to pull into a rusting Soviet era gas station whose signage was still in Cyrillic. 

“Everything OK boss?” Kolchak asked.

“Fine,” he said. “Someone get me copies of all today's newspapers.” He gestured at the station's small store. “They'll have Hungarian editions of their main ones.”

“I got it,” Daggert said.

It took just minutes, but as Klaue's agitation increased with each passing military vehicle, it felt longer to the other occupants of the vehicle. Klaue took the newspapers from Daggert before he'd even begun to climb in the SUV and passed them to Pidgey. 

The headlines and stories on the first few pages were full of citizen protests, attacks on ineffective politicians by the media, and stories of how the royal family could exercise a clause in the barely ten year old constitution to nullify the government and resume the monarchy's control of the country—with follow up stories discussing the charismatic general who has threatened military action if the monarchy attempts to use the clause. 

“Lovely,” Klaue said as he stared at Daggert. “Looks like we're just in time for Symkaria's decennial coup.”

Daggert grimaced, cleared his throat, and decided now was the perfect time to really inspect his fingernails.

“We'll stay out of the city and keep a low profile,” he said finally. “It'll be fine. No showboating, no clubs. You need to recover more anyway. No one anywhere is going to even think to look for you here. It's a good solid plan, Boss.”

Klaue sank back in his seat and exhaled slowly. He lay his good arm across his chest and tucked his hand up under the stump of his left arm.

“Fine,” Klaue said.


	8. Chapter 8

For the remainder of the day and the entirety of the next, Klaue medicated himself into near continuous sleep. His only interruptions came from Daggert--once to go over business and the other for a checkup with a local doctor they had on the payroll. Aside from that, he slept soundly. There were no dreams. No nightmares. And no phantom visitors. 

Sunlight had begun to creep in through the floor to ceiling windows of the master suite and forced Klaue to come to terms with the fact that he'd run out of the medications he'd acquired in Narobia and Cairo. If the new doctor had left any, Daggert hadn't shared that with him. The bottle of whiskey he'd picked up in the duty-free shop at the Cairo airport was empty as well. His head pounded, his mouth felt like cotton, and his stomach, for the first time in days, hurt due to something other than his injuries. Klaue staggered to a standing position and tried to remember which one of the four doors in the room was the bathroom. He got it right on the second try. 

Half an hour later he tottered his way down the hall to the double stairs that wrapped their way back down to the empty foyer. When they'd arrived Klaue had forgone a tour. He vaguely recalled Daggert telling him the house had been stripped of everything belonging to the previous owner and that the crew staying at the estate had only recently begun to work on getting furnishings into the house. They had prioritized updating security measures and a few construction projects over anything else. Once he was in the foyer, Klaue realized that a tour might have been a good idea—at least when it came to important things like the kitchen. He sat down on the steps ran his hand through his hair. 

A door opened from under the stairs on the opposite side of the foyer. The new kid, Hammond, stepped out and took a few cautious steps toward Klaue. The smell of coffee followed him out into the foyer.

“Uh...do you need anything Boss?” Hammond asked.

Klaue pointed at the door behind him. 

“Kitchen?” He asked the younger man.

“Yep,” Hammond said. “Pidgey just fixed coffee.”

“Sounds like a good start,” Klaue said.

The kitchen had been renovated recently enough Klaue could still smell fresh paint. The room was long and thin. All of the appliances and counter space were against one wall and the opposite wall was occupied by a long wooden table with benches on the side against the wall and mismatched chairs on the other. 

“How do you like your coffee?” Hammond asked.

“Black is fine,” Klaue said. “Where's Daggert?”

He slid into a padded chair at one end of the table. Hammond set a mug of coffee in front of Klaue.

“He had errands to run,” Hammond said. “He said if you got up to let you know he was working on getting the rest of the stock for the Peru deal. He said you'd know what that meant. Do you want any food? I'm pretty good with eggs and toast.” 

“Yeah, that'll work,” Klaue said. “Thanks.”

Daggert returned while Klaue was eating. He shooed Hammond out of the room with a wave of his hand and fixed himself coffee.

“Everything set?” Klaue asked.

“Yeah,” Daggert replied. “Everything will be stocked on the ship by the end of the week. The ship's in Liberia now, so it should take us about two weeks to get to Peru. I figure give you another week to rest up here, then we can meet up in Liberia and get going. We can set the final meet up while we're on the water. We'll beat the original time frame we gave him, I think with doing that we can expect some repeat business from him. After that, we should come back here and lay low for a while.”

“You can take care of the deal,” Klaue told him. “He knows you enough, we'll be good there. Probably a good idea to have you start handling things in person more.” 

Daggert's mug hit the table hard enough for coffee to slosh out one side. Silently he grabbed a handful of napkins from the center of the table and mopped it up as he sat down. When he'd finished he crossed his arms over his chest and stared at Klaue. Klaue picked at the last bit of egg on his plate.

“You OK?” Daggert asked.

“Fine,” Klaue replied.

Daggert pulled folded paper from his shirt pocket and tossed it at Klaue. When Klaue opened it up he found it was two pieces of paper. Both had doctor's names written on them.

“Is there something I need to know?” Daggert asked. “Dr. Hodzic dropped those off last night. He said you asked for some recommendations. So. Are you OK?” 

“I'll be fine,” Klaue told him. “I asked him for dentists and dermatologists who could be trusted.”

“Why?” Daggert asked.

Klaue looked at the scorpion tattoo on his lower arm and hand.

“I'm just thinking I need to be able to blend in a little better,” he replied.

“You, Ulysses Klaue, don't want to stand out?” Daggert chuckled. “Do we need to get you an MRI?” He realized Klaue wasn't laughing. His eyes narrowed. “What's going on Boss?”

“Did Dr. Hodzic leave any medication?” Klaue asked. 

“Yeah, he wants you to stay on that antibiotic another week. He dropped that off last night too,” Daggert said.

“What about pain meds?” Klaue asked.

“No. He said you shouldn't need anything stronger than over the counter stuff,” Daggert said.

“Liar,” Klaue said.

“Frequently,” Daggert replied. “What's going on?”

“I'm just thinking it's time to...maybe...retire,” Klaue said.

“Wow,” Daggert said. He leaned back in his seat and shook his head. “That's not something I ever expected to hear coming from you. What brought that on?”

“I...this was a close call,” Klaue said.

“You've had plenty of close calls,” Daggert said. “That whole thing with Ul...on the old ship. That time in New Zealand. Bucharest. You came out worse after that job in the Philippines. There has to be more to this.”

“Limbani,” Klaue said.

“Yeah, that was a loss,” Daggert said. “But we've lost guys before. It happens. He'll be missed...”

“Fokken verdraai.” Klaue spat the words out and tossed his fork on the table.

“What now?” Daggert asked. “ What's a ver...dray? I don't know that one.”

“Pervert. Fokken pedo.” Klaue slammed his fist on the table.

“That one I get,” Daggert said. “How...”

“He got picked by Interpol in Brazil last year,” Klaue said. “He was collecting evidence for them so he could avoid jail. Dom stuk kak.”

“That's...no way.” Daggert shook his head. “You sure about that?”

Klaue pulled the thumb drive out of his pocket and slid it across the table. Daggert picked it up and turned it over in his hands.

“He checked out for two days after that deal,” Klaue said. “and nobody ever questioned it, because how many times have any of us done that? That's a lot of chances for anybody to pick one of the crew up for the shit they might be doing. And what other liabilities do we have in the crew?”

Daggert turned the thumb drive over and over in his fingers. He nodded. His jaw worked from side to side.

“I know a guy in Belize who does background work.” He said finally. “He's not cheap, but he's thorough. I'll have him run the whole crew. Including me. That way you can see everything.”

“I don't need a check on you,” Klaue said.

“Look, whatever the hell happened that has you this wound up ain't going away until you get some peace of mind,” Daggert said. “So let me try and get the one thing I can do done for you.” 

“Get him working on it then,” Klaue said. He tossed the papers back to Daggert. “And have him check this lot out as well.”

Daggert held up the papers briefly before he pocketed them.

“You sure about this route?” He asked.

“Yes...a little,” Klaue said. “I want them checked out...just in case.”

Daggert stared at Klaue. Klaue stared back. Hammond peaked back in on the kitchen, glanced at the two of them, and disappeared again.

“I'm still gonna have him run me too,” Daggert said, “but you know I am fully aware I wouldn't be here right now if it weren't for you, right?”

“I am aware,” Klaue said. “Which is why I know I don't need you checked out.”

“I should have been dead twenty years ago,” Daggert said. “Everything after that warehouse is bonus content as far as I'm concerned. I'd rot in jail however long the universe sees fit to let me stomp around on this hell hole before I'd flip on you.”

“You aren't going to try and propose are you?” Klaue asked.

“Man, I'm trying to be all serious and you go and be you,” Daggert replied. He tossed the coffee soaked napkins at Klaue. “And we both know I could do better.”

They both realized Hammond had walked back in the room. The kid set his coffee mug down on the counter and walked back out again. The two men explode into laughter. 

“Kak.” Klaue sucked in a breath and held his sore stomach.


	9. Chapter 9

What followed were wasted days of Klaue tooling around the property on a golf cart. He made a point of driving along the stone fence that enclosed three sides of the estate so he could survey the activity of the neighboring properties; then zig zagged around the gardens and pool before driving along the front where a low thick hedge allowed a view of the estate from the road. The road wound lazily through the countryside past the secluded estates that dotted rolling green hills. There was minimal traffic along the road, mainly well kept decades old luxury cars and a few trucks belonging to landscapers. Nothing suspicious about the activity and for the first time in a long while Klaue found himself able to relax. 

Klaue quickly came to realize why the estate was considered modest. Compared to the neighboring properties, with the exception of one place almost directly across the road, most of the manor houses were so far back off the road that it masked the actual size of the buildings. They also sat on considerably more acreage and were at least three stories. For being modest Klaue was impressed--it was the largest thing he'd ever owned. There had been some large ships over the years, but this beat all of those. And upon hearing the history of how the estate had come to be—it was split off from one of the neighboring estates in the 1800's to hide a mistress and bastard children--Klaue had cackled wildly and decided he was a perfect fit for owning such property. His mood had also been lifted with each return call from his contacts.

In addition to the initial three he'd called upon arrival, Klaue had reached out to several others as well. The consensus across the board was that the country was teetering on the brink of another civil war. The military sector was optimistic that threats by their leadership and their increased show of force would get citizens scared and get them pushing for politicians to resolve things peacefully. The politicians were convinced danger was imminent and they would all wind up in front of a firing squad next to a mass grave. A repeat of the military coup twenty years ago. The coup the previous decade had seen all of the politicians fleeing the country as it happened. With each of those calls Klaue would briefly become increasingly agitated again--it was the calls from Symkaria's underworld that brought him back down. 

His criminal contacts, while agreeing the country was at a precarious point in their history (yet again), believed the younger members of the royal family were the key to everything. They felt the younger generation—obsessed with reality television and fame—was poised to rise up and do the older generation in. A grotesque family tradition of sorts. They were popular with the people, photogenic enough to garner international attention, and were more concerned with rubbing elbows with the rich and famous around the world than with running a country. They didn't want the responsibility, they were content to let the country be run democratically while they enjoyed the privilege and wealth being a member of a royal family awarded them. Many had recently embraced the reality TV craze and there were now two shows high in Symkaria's television ratings featuring several of the single members of the royal family as they partied and dated their way through the country—and Europe. Despite the appearance of being the spoiled elites gliding through life, they were the descendants of some of the most ruthless dictators, brilliant military strategists, and spectacularly backstabby crones the world had ever known. Once they seized power and continued on with their carefree way of life, the military and politicians would consider them a nonissue and things would die down. In the meantime, there was money to be made from the paranoia running rampant among the citizenry. 

Klaue had one contact in the underworld he trusted enough to have out to the estate. The two had driven around the property and discussed business. The prospect of a new business opportunity had elevated Klaue's mood enough that he broke out into random parts of different songs. As he left the driveway and sped around the manor to the pool house, he belted out bits of the Bulletboys song “For The Love of Money” As Klaue came to a stop in front of the bungalow Daggert popped his head up from behind the bar—the pool house had become Daggert's pet project immediately after he'd settled in.

“Give me a nickel,” Klaue crooned hoarsely, “brother can you spare a dime...”

“What's got you in a good mood?” Daggert asked.

“Business,” Klaue announced.

“Oh yeah?” Daggert said.

“My friend Mr. Subotić is looking for generators and handguns,” Klaue told him. “We can have that filled before we need to be in Peru.”

“Yep,” Daggert said. 

Daggert stood up and stared at Klaue.

“What?” Klaue asked.

“I thought you wanted to retire,” Daggert said.

“Well...I do...but since I'm here, I might as well keep busy,” he replied.

“And Peru?” Daggert asked.

Klaue scratched at his chin.

“I was thinking I should probably go with you since I did set everything up initially,” he said. “Make it a one last blast kind of thing, ja?”

Daggert laughed.

“I knew you couldn't retire.” He laughed again.

“I can retire ANY TIME I want to!” Klaue defended. “And I plan to. After this bit.”

“Sure.” 

“Get a hold of Beckett and have him start putting a load together,” Klaue said. 

Daggert nodded and began caulking the edge of the small stainless steel sink he'd just installed. Klaue took a seat on one of the bar stools and looked out over the pool. An O shape with an island lounge area at center with realistic lighted palm trees and a rubberized ground covering that--from a distance--looked like sand. The pool meandered under small bridges at the top and bottom and disappeared under what looked like a giant coral reef-which contained another lounge area inside.

“So,” Daggert said, “since you're staying active for a bit should I have your upgraded arm finished? I was going to tell them to scrap the project...”

“Have it finished,” Klaue said. “They're sure they can make it look more natural?”

“They swear they can,” Daggert said. “Is that all you're worried about?”

“Why?” Klaue asked.

“I just...” Daggert set the caulk gun down and wiped his hands. “I don't know if I would feel safe having am implant shoved in my brain.”

“They said it will give me more control over it,” Klaue said. “The Engineer in Tokyo said it's good sound tech.”

“If you say so,” Daggert said. 

Klaue slid off the bench and made his way over to the entrance of the hedge maze. 

“I'm going to take a walk,” he told Daggert.

“If you get lost in that thing, I am NOT coming to get you again,” Daggert told him.

Klaue held up his cell phone.

“I took a picture of it from the balcony,” he said. “I'll be fine.”


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bagmom is another country in the Marvel Universe

Two Days Later

The room was sterile whites and grays with splashes of color thanks to the charts and cutaway diagrams of teeth and dental disease posted on the cabinet doors. The bright overhead lights pushed through the dark edges of Klaue's vision. Muffed voices slowly became clearer. He sat in the dentist's chair and rubbed at his jaw.

“There he is!” Dr. Grigori Popa announced. 

His round face appeared to float in front of Klaue. He waved at the mercenary, adjusted his wire rimmed glasses and disappeared back out of view. Daggert leaned in and studied Klaue's face.

“You OK boss?” He asked. “How do you feel?”

“Like I should have made him buy me dinner first,” Klaue said.

Klaue continued to massage his jaw. Dr. Popa burst in to a cackle of laughter.

“I like this guy,” the dentist said.

Daggert shook his head.

“You are the only person I know who needs to be sedated for routine dental work,” he told Klaue.

“This isn't routine,” Klaue said. 

“Eh, cleaning, x rays, impressions...,” Dr. Popa said, “pretty routine.” 

Klaue grumbled and tucked his hand up under the remainder of his left arm. Dr. Popa turned on a flat screen monitor that was attached to one wall and went to work at the computer in the corner of the room.

“You got a snazzy set up here Doc,” Daggert said.

“You mean pretty modern for cow field like Symkaria.” It was a statement not a question.

“Uh...I wasn't...” Daggert stammered.

The dentist laughed again.

“No, no, you would be correct and I know you mean no disrespect,” Popa said. “The truth is, if it weren't for my after hours clients like boss man here, I would still have decades old second hand equipment.” 

The screen filled with x ray images of Klaue's teeth and jaws. Popa walked over to the chair Klaue was still partially reclined in. He adjusted the chair so Klaue sat fully upright and then went over to the monitor.

“So what's your assessment Doctor?” Klaue asked.

“You really should get teeth cleaned more than every couple years, but overall everything looks good except for these capped teeth.” The dentist replied. He touched one of the images on the screen and it enlarged. It was one of the back teeth with a gold cap. “Whoever did these...horrible work. I could redo root canals but...not much will be left of teeth. Almost nothing left of this one now anyway.” He point to the image he'd brought up again. “Your associate said you were interested in implants for capped teeth, not bridges?”

“Ja, I want the implants,” Klaue told him. “You can do those?”

“Yes, but they take longer. I don't know, or need to know, your timetable,” the dentist said, “but you have post put in first, then wait, eh, about seven weeks for jaw to heal. Then we put replacements on the posts. Still something you want to do? With impressions I made, I can have bridges done between now and next appointment.”

“No, I want the implants,” Klaue said. “I'll make time.”

Daggert nodded in the background. 

“How soon do you want to get started?” Dr. Popa asked.

“I'm leaving for business tomorrow,” Klaue said. “I should be back in about three weeks. Let's say four weeks?”

Dr. Popa went back to his computer and made an entry in his calendar. 

“Four weeks from today.” He said.

He scribbled on a small card and hand it to Klaue—who took it and handed it to Daggert. Daggert pocketed the card and then set a small envelope down on the counter. Dr. Popa nodded and snagged the envelope as he moved to open the door for them. Klaue waited until they were out in the darkened parking lot before he said anything else.

“Why'd you pick this dentist?” He asked Daggert. “Both of them came back OK right?”

“He had a better website.” Daggert said. “The other guy's looked like something out the early 90's. All that flashy blinky shit...annoying as hell. I think this guy will work out just fine.”

“Let's see how this all turns out before we go adding him to any lists,” Klaue said. 

He rubbed at his jaw again as he climbed in to the SUV.

“Still bugging you?” Daggert asked.

“I need a drink,” Klaue said. “How close are we to the Merchant's District?”

“Why? What's there?” Daggert asked.

“Subotić is part owner of a club there,” Klaue said. “He said we could stop by anytime and he'd give us one of the VIP rooms. We could...”

“No.” Daggert said.

“Excuse me?” Klaue asked. 

Daggert turned the after market navigation system on and had it reverse the previous directions it had given. He didn't bother to look at Klaue.

“You heard me,” he told Klaue. “You still need to heal. I've known you long enough to know one drink will turn in to two drinks, which will turn in to lots more drinks and buying rounds for the bar. Followed up with getting flirty with the waitresses and any other woman in the bar even if she is there with someone...and then we have a bar fight.”

“That doesn't happen every time,” Klaue defended.

“OK,” Daggert said. “About 99% of the time then.”

“I....” Klaue thought about it for a moment. “Huh.” He said finally.

“So no bar,” Daggert said. “Maybe, MAYBE, when we get done with the deal in Peru we do something there before coming back here. I mean, you still want to lay low here for awhile right? Besides, we got the ship stocked and two weeks on the water. The damage will be minimal there. Or at least better contained.”

“Ja,” Klaue sighed. “That's probably a smarter plan.”

“Good. Relax tonight and we can go over final planning tomorrow with everyone,” Daggert said. “Have a few drinks at the house if you want. I got the bar in the pool house stocked now.”

 

 

When the two arrived back at the estate they discovered the rest of the crew were already enjoying the pool house. The lights on the island had all been replaced and new patio lights had been strung up around the pool house and the fencing around the pool. Hammond and Kolchak were racing inflatables around the pool using pool noodles as paddles. Pidgey had passed out on a lounge chair protectively cradling a bowling pin. They had music blaring. At some point prior to Daggert and Klaue's arrival, one of the couples from a neighboring estate had come over to complain about the noise and ended up staying to enjoy the American whiskey and cigarettes they had been offered upon arrival. 

Klaue was introduced to Mr. and Mrs. Reznowski, who in thick Eastern European accented English gushed about how nice it was to see the estate being cared for again. Based on the country of origin of the booze and cigarettes, the Reznowski's had decided everyone at the estate must have been American and no one had bothered to correct them. The Reznowski's reminisced about their trips to California when their middle son attend the University of California in Los Angeles and spoke about how they had taken side trips to Florida and New York on their way back home from each trip. They were looking forward to new trips to America since their daughter would be starting the University of Nevada in Las Vegas in the fall. They were thrilled when they found out that Hammond was from Las Vegas-- and he had already given them a list of places to avoid and places they had to see when they visited the city. Since most of the crew had been to New York at some point, they had identified the city as their home town when asked. Daggert wasn't aware of that and confounded them with the revelation that the United States was made up of more than California, Nevada, Florida, New York. They were thrilled to learn about the mysterious land of Ohio. 

Between stories and sharing gossip about the other neighbors, Mrs. Reznowski had taken it upon herself to play bartender while her husband played poker with some of the crew. She specialized in, what she called, the Symkarian version of a Moscow Mule and shoved one into the hands of anyone who stepped up at the bar. Klaue pounded down one of the offered drinks and his head immediately swam. He steadied himself by holding on to the edge of the bar. Mrs. Reznowski suggested he needed another and before he could protest found himself holding another one. Against the residual amount of good judgment he still had left, he downed that one at nearly the same pace he'd drank the first one. 

Klaue watched the edges of his vision blacken as his mouth went dry. He swore he tasted bile and sand. He broke out in a cold sweat and quickly walked away from the pool. Out on the lawn, near the opening of the hedge maze he took in several slow deep breaths and concentrate on the bright starlit sky above him. 

Someone called out from behind him. Klaue didn't understand the words, but from the inflection he picked up at the end, he was certain it was a question of some sort. He turned and found a heavy set man in a suit standing behind him. The man smiled. He'd taken off his tie and stuffed it in one of the pockets on his jacket and unbuttoned the top couple buttons of his white dress shirt—part of the tie hung out from the pocket. 

“Sorry, I don't speak Symkarian,” Klaue told him.

He realized he should have been more alarmed than he was about someone getting the drop on him. He couldn't quite be bothered with that at the moment. Everything felt off. He was certain a man in a dirty military uniform had just been walking in the neighbor's yard along the fence, but there was no one there now.

“English!” the man said. He clapped his hands together. “Good. My English is pretty good. My Russian not so much. I like what you've done with the place.”

“Thanks,” Klaue said. “Sorry about the noise...”

“Oh no need to apologize,” the man said. 

“Grab a drink if you want,” Klaue told him.

The man sighed.

“I wish I could,” he said. 

It finally dawned on Klaue.

“You're not...really here are you?” He asked the man.

“No.” He said. “Although I suppose...technically I am still here,” he gestured towards the hedge maze, “and there,” then towards a thicket of thorny shrubs at the center of an ornamental garden, “and over there.” He point back towards the remains of a stable. “I should be more disturbed by that than I am I think.”

“Probably,” Klaue agreed. “So why are you here?” He asked.

“I came out here to check on you,” Daggert said. “You took off pretty fast there. How are you feeling?”

Daggert stood at the entrance to the pool house with a beer in his hand. Klaue glanced at the spot in the yard where the ghost had stood and found he was gone now. 

“I'm pretty sure I should not have had those drinks,” Klaue told him.

“Why don't you get some sleep,” Daggert said. “We have a lot to go over tomorrow before we leave.”

“Sleep sounds good,” Klaue said.

He half stumbled towards the house. Daggert set his beer down and rushed over to make sure Klaue didn't wind up face down on the lawn. Klaue waved him off and started to move again.

“You OK?” Daggert asked him.

“A little drunk,” Klaue said.

“No, I mean is your stomach bothering you?” Daggert asked him.

“Why?” Klaue asked.

He glanced down and realized he'd wrapped his arm around his stomach. He tasted sand again.Klaue spit into the yard and shook his head to try and clear it. Daggert grabbed him and got him moving towards the house again.

“I'd tease you about being a light weight now, but you look like hell,” he told Klaue.

“Dankie.” Klaue said.

 

A part of Klaue was very strongly against lifting the covers and finding the source of whatever had bumped into his bed. Light filtered through the comforter and the birds that had take up residence in the tree just off his balcony were in full song. He reminded himself that none of the ghosts he'd encountered could physically do anything and quickly, before he could change his mind, threw the covers back. Daggert paced the floor and typed into his phone. 

“Finally,” he said to Klaue. “You going to give more than grunted answers now?”

“We were talking?” Klaue asked.

“No, apparently that was just me this whole time,” Daggert said.

“What time is it?” Klaue asked.

“Almost noon,” Daggert replied.

“Why'd you let me sleep so late?”

“Why did I let...I've been trying to get you going for two hours,” he told Klaue. “We're going to have lunch and go over everything in the library in half an hour.”

Daggert walked out of the room. He left the door open. Klaue looked around the room to make sure he was alone and then got himself up.

The library was still mostly empty shelves. In the time since he'd arrived, the crew had managed to find a long ornate table and matching chairs and had those on top of a couple Persian rugs in the center of the room. There was a matching desk and chair on on end of the room and then two high backed chairs with similar carvings in front of the fireplace on the other end of the room. It seemed familiar. Near the door there was a gold trimmed globe on a tall stand. He gave the globe a spin and then remembered.

“Hey, this is all the stuff we took from that Sultan in Bagmom when he wouldn't pay us,” Klaue said. “Where has this been?”

“We had it in the hold on the old ship,” Daggert said. “Then in storage in Johannesburg.”

“Somebody tried to stiff paying you guys?” Hammond asked.

“Ja,” Klaue told him. “He hired us to take out some rebels that had hit one of his oil fields and kidnapped his wife. We got rid of them and rescued his wife and then he didn't want to pay us. He's lucky I was in a good mood.”

“Why would he do that if you did the job right?” Hammond asked.

There were several chuckles. Daggert cleared his throat and spoke.

“Probably because between rescuing her and returning her to her husband SOMEONE slept with her,” he explained.

Klaue burst in to laughter as he took a seat at the head of the table.

“I forgot about that.” He laughed again.

Pidgey walked in to the room and immediately turned on the flat screen TV on the wall behind the desk. He flipped through the satellites they had hooked up for programming and found a channel covering the UN.

“What's going on?” Daggert asked.

“Apparently,” Pidgey said. “King T'Challa is about to give some speech at the UN.”

“Wat!? Fok!” Klaue stood up. “How did you find that out?”

“We've been keeping an eye on everything we can from Wakanda,” Daggert said. “Mainly to see if they have any idea you're still alive. So far nothing.”

“What do you think he's up to?” Pidgey asked.

“Well I guess we're about to find out,” Klaue said.

He turned the chair around and sat down to face the TV.


	11. Interlude 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cradock Marine Bank is a fictional bank that has been used in both The X-Files and Breaking Bad.

United Nations, Vienna  
After the Press Conference 

 

Ross slipped through the crowd and headed towards the cluster of reporters trying to get an interview with T'Challa. A break in the chaos allowed the two to make eye contact. They nodded and head towards each other—only to be cut off by dignitaries and more reporters vying for the King's attention. Okoye stepped in front of T'Challa and kept everyone at an arm's length. Ross picked out three more members of the Dora Milaje nearby. They scanned the crowd and moved at the same pace as T'Challa and Okoye. T'Challa smiled, nodded, and answered a few questions as he continued to head for the doors. He caught Ross' attention again and nodded towards the doors. Ross changed course and cut through the back of the crowd. He almost made it.

“Agent Ross!” 

So close, Ross thought.

He recognized it as the Assistant Director's voice and turned around to face him. The Assistant Director was flanked by two other men Ross didn't initially recognize. Ross smiled and waited for them. Upon closer inspection, Ross realized one was a Senator rumored to be considering a Presidential run and the other was the State Department's Assistant Secretary of African Affairs.

“What a Hell of a press conference,” the Assistant Secretary said.

“It was at that,” Ross said.

“Agent Ross, my friend!” T'Challa's voice boomed. 

The group turned to face the approaching King. T'Challa pumped Ross' hand and pat his shoulder. 

“Your Highness,” Ross replied. “I was starting to think we wouldn't have time to catch up.”

“And we have much to catch up on,” T'Challa said. 

T'Challa steered Ross a few steps closer to the door. The Assistant Direct cleared his throat.

“Your Highness,” Ross said. “This is Assistant Director Bill Haines, Senator Gary Carlisle, and Assistant Secretary Peter Warren.”

“A pleasure to meet you all,” T'Challa said. 

He exchanged handshakes with the three men.

“King T'Challa,” the Assistant Secretary said. “I would like to formally request an audience with you on behalf of the US government. Perhaps something short while we're both here in Vienna? And a meeting with more depth at a later date?”

“Yes,” Senator Carlisle said. “The US government would like to offer our expertise to Wakanda when it comes to navigating the world stage. Anything we can do to help you with international relations, don't hesitate to call on us.”

“And we would be happy to start a program to share our technological advances to aid in Wakanda's development,” the Assistant Secretary add.

“Thank you all,” T'Challa said. “But I think if I have anything that I need from the United States then Agent Ross would be the contact I'm most comfortable with. In fact, I require his counsel on an urgent matter. If you would excuse us?”

“It would be our pleasure to have Agent Ross as your liaison with the United States,” the Assistant Director said. “I will make sure he's at your disposal.”

Assistant Secretary Warren leaned over to Ross.

“Why don't we have lunch next week back in Washington,” he said to Ross.

“Of course sir,” Ross nodded. 

T'Challa shook hands with the men again and then made his move for the door with Ross by his side. Okoye and the other members of the Dora Milaje appeared around them.

“Did he really offer to share technology with us?” T'Challa asked Ross.

“Yes he did,” Ross replied. “And thank you for not laughing at him.”

“It's a good thing Shuri wasn't there,” he said. “I don't think she would have shown as much restraint.”

The two broke out into a fit of laughter. 

 

“This is insane,” Ross said. He stopped pacing and took a seat at the conference table that dominated an alcove off of the living room in T'Challa's suite. “How the Hell did Klaue survive? They didn't give you anything useful at that Doctors Without Borders Hospital? Are you sure he was even really there?”

They'd waited until they were safely in T'Challa's suite before bringing up anything related to Klaue. Okoye and Nakia were the only others in the room with them. The rest of the Dora Milaje had taken Shuri and Queen Ramonda out to an afternoon tea thrown by the wife of Vienna's Mayor and Governor—an event Shuri had spent the entire ride back arguing she didn't need to attend.

“We know that when Klaue's body was presented by Killmonger he had two visible gunshot wounds,” Nakia said. “Based on that we assumed Klaue would need medical attention quickly. With the time frame involved in the truck that picked him up at the border and it getting back to the preserve when it did, that left only a few options. We found nothing at either of the hospitals we checked and at the Doctor's Without Borders camp, we found a lot of uncooperative people.”

“Uncooperative how?” Ross asked.

“Anyone we showed Klaue's photo to barely looked at it but they were sure they'd never seen anyone who looked like him,” Nakia said. “A few people became very panicked when we tried to press them any further.”

“Do we need to continue to press it?” Ross asked.

“I don't think so,” T'Challa said. “Especially since it seems like for once in his life Klaue did something decent.”

“What do you mean?” Ross asked.

“Their supply convoys were getting hit regularly,” Okoye said. “The local police were taking bribes from the gang responsible—at least they were up until recently. It seems someone bribed them with more money to ensure the convoys got through. They actually broke up the gang and the police commandant now personally leads the supply convoys into the camp.”

“We've decided to let it drop,” T'Challa said. “I can't imagine Klaue and his associates discussing anything while any of the staff was around anyway.”

“And you're sure this truck from the nature preserve picked him up?” Ross asked.

“We know that the owner of the preserve owes Klaue a great deal and that Klaue is one of the only people he's afraid of,” Nakia said. “He wouldn't scramble to get a truck headed to the Wakandan border in the middle of the night for anyone else.”

“Did Interpol give you anything else on Limbani?” T'Challa asked.

“I still can't believe they would offer a deal to anyone like that,” Nakia said.

“I can't either,” Ross said. “But whatever it is they want Klaue for is serious enough that they were willing to make that deal.”

“You still don't know what they want him for then?” Okoye asked.

Ross shook his head.

“All my contact would tell me is that it's such a big case that only a few people involved have all the particulars,” Ross said. “They did confirm that Limbani hadn't given them anything useful yet. He was due to meet with his handler in Johannesburg after Korea.”

“But they had no idea if what he was bringing would do them any good?” Okoye asked.

“No,” Ross said. “His handler knew Limbani had a thumb drive he'd be turning over; he had told his handler it was more than enough to nail Klaue with.”

“But you didn't find a thumb drive?” Okoye asked.

“Right,” Ross said. “We searched his body, his gear, and the plane. Either Klaue figured out what was going on and took it or Killmonger did.”

“I've had the area around the grave checked as well,” T'Challa said. “There's always the chance it could have been dropped but if it was it is long gone.”

“What would have been Killmonger's motivation for taking it if he did?” Nakia asked. “If Klaue was dead why keep the information?”

“If it was Killmonger, my guess is he wasn't planning to kill Klaue,” Ross said. “If he knew Limbani was carrying information like that, then for someone like Killmonger that's blackmail material.”

“You think he planned to blackmail Klaue into cooperating?” T'Challa said.

“It's a guess,” Ross said. “And if Klaue wasn't going to cooperate, then Killmonger might have decided to just kill him.”

“Except that didn't work either,” Okoye said.

Ross nodded.

“What about the woman?” T'Challa asked. “Was she with Klaue or Killmonger?”

“Linda Palmer,” Ross began, “she was with Killmonger. She left the Agency last year and now that they know she and Killmonger were involved with Klaue both of their files have been locked down tighter than Fort Knox.” Okoye and T'Challa exchanged a glance. “What!? Sorry. It's a euphemism we use in the U.S. It's a very secure facility.” The two stared at him. T'Challa smirked. “Please don't tell me you've broken into Fort Knox.”

“Okay. We won't.” T'Challa replied. 

Ross' jaw dropped. He shook his head. Okoye smiled.

“You've got to be kidding me!?” Ross managed finally.

“Your government had obtained a sizable amount of vibranium,” Okoye said. “It wasn't theirs, so it was taken back.”

“You know...I don't want to know anymore. Ever.” Ross said. 

“That's probably a good idea,” T'Challa said.

“Back to Palmer,” Ross changed the subject. “Despite the sealed file, I did find out who she usually reported to and had a talk with him. He said until her boyfriend came along she was a model agent.”

“Killmonger?” T'Challa aksed.

“Yep,” Ross replied. “He was worried Killmonger went to work for someone else and was recruiting her. Then she quit suddenly. Both of them dropped out of sight and until the museum in London, they had no idea where to find them. Based on what I've found so far, it looks like Killmonger cased the museum about the time Palmer got hired into work in the cafe there. The name she used there was Sophie Stevens. Her coworkers at the museum all liked her a lot and she was a model employee.”

“Continuing to investigate Limbani or Palmer won't give us any more information,” Okoye said.

“I'm in agreement there,” Ross said.

“Were you able to track anything down from the footage at the Cairo airport?” T'Challa asked Ross.

“It took a while to get the airport to cooperate and it still didn't give us much,” Ross said. “They went to a part of the airport reserved for passengers flying out on private aircraft—the airport management were worried about the privacy of some of the other passengers. If we could have gotten it the same day we asked, we might have had a better chance of figuring out where they went. We now know the plane he left on is owned by someone name Jan DeBoer and they had a flight plan filed for Brussels. Somewhere over the Italian and Swiss border, they disappeared off the radar.”

“I highly doubt their plane crashed.” T'Challa asked.

“There is plenty of technology out there that would let them hide from radar,” Nakia said.

“I'm aware of that,” Ross said. “I'm really not happy with the idea that someone like Klaue has that tech.”

“Did you say DeBoer?” Nakia asked.

“Yes,” Ross said. “Why?”

“Klaue's mother's maiden name was DeBoer,” Nakia said. “We looked at his family for a while when we were trying to track him down after the vibranium heist.”

“That can't be a coincidence,” T'Challa said.

Ross pulled his phone and a thumb drive from a pocket. He sent out a text, then plugged the thumb drive into the laptop that sat in the middle of the table.

“I'll have Jan DeBoer checked out,” he said. “The only thing at this point I had on him was that he owns a transit company called DeBoer Logistics, which is based out of Brussels, and in the late 80's he started a small recording studio, also in Brussels, that works with unsigned bands. Using his extended family might be a way Klaue has been able to disappear.”

On the laptop, Ross pulled up still shots from the Cairo airport, the images had been scrubbed so that the faces of all four men and the back end of the SUV that had dropped them off were clearer. Then he pulled up another set of photos of Klaue, his men, and the same SUV. In the second set, they were dressed differently and Klaue looked considerably more disheveled than usual. The airport loading area was different. He turned the laptop around so they could all see the photos.

“What are we looking at?” T'Challa asked. 

“Same car, same Klaue,” Ross said. He highlighted a photo of the two other men with Klaue. “This guy is the same,” he pointed to a man with receding blond-white hair and a matching van dyke, “but then by Cairo he lost the other guy and picked up two others. You know the Cairo photos, but these others were taken the day before at Hurghada International Airport. We know now that Klaue came in on a private flight from Narobia that landed in Hurghada the day these photos were taken. The SUV that picked him up and dropped him off is registered to a limo company that specializes in celebrities and high-end tourism,” Ross said. “This particular SUV was checked out of their pool of vehicles two days in a row by their Finance Officer, a Mr. Robert O'Hara--formerly a Vice President of Finance at Cradock Marine Bank...”

“An institution we know Klaue has laundered money through,” T'Challa said.

“Exactly,” Ross continued. “O'Hara managed to get himself out of there two weeks before their UK headquarters were raided by MI5 and Scotland Yard. The files for all of his clients were mysteriously erased and unrecoverable.” 

“He was never charged with anything?” Nakia asked.

Ross shook his head. 

“He was interviewed,” he explained, “but they didn't have enough evidence to charge him with anything. He claimed he'd gotten a bad feeling about their business practices and decided to get out.”

“So O'Hara picks him up, hides him out somewhere, and then gets him to the Cairo airport the next day,” T'Challa said. “Where were they in between?”

“That I don't know yet,” Ross said. “But the guy who came in with Klaue and didn't leave with him might be our best shot at figuring that out. I think he might still be in Egypt. I've got agents looking for him.” 

“What about any of these other men?” T'Challa asked.

Okoye reached out and scrolled the touch screen back to the man with the receding hair and van dyke. 

“Specifically this one,” she said. “We've seen him in our surveillance on Klaue over the years. I'm sure of it.”

“If he's been with Klaue awhile then we might have him in some other files,” Ross said. “Maybe Interpol has something. I'm running faces through facial recognition software as well. Hopefully, we get some sort of hit.”

T'Challa said. He leaned back in his chair and sighed. 

“At this point, all we can do is wait,” T'Challa said. “And hope Klaue turns up somewhere.”


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Port of Talara and Victor Montes Arias International Airport are real places in Peru (Thank you Google!).   
> Alexander Blont is a Daredevil related crime boss who preceded the Kingpin. No family other than a deceased wife was mentioned in the Marvel Wiki I found, so I’m giving him a whole expanded family.

Three weeks later

They were caught in crossfire. Pinned down between their client and his main rival. The deal had been set up at an abandoned construction site about halfway between the Port of Talara, where they had docked, and the Victor Montes Arias International Airport. It seemed out of the way enough, and with the surrounding terrain being scrub and desert they could see any potential dangers approaching. But someone in their client's organization had tipped off the rival. It was the only logical explanation. Their client opted to escape with his body guards while two of his other men took off in the trucks carrying the weapons they'd just purchased. The rest of his crew remained to provide cover fire and take out anyone potentially trying to follow their boss.

Klaue's plan had been to escape with his own crew, a turf war wasn't any of his concern—even if his weapons were being used to keep it going. Unfortunately, the client had been interrupted during his processing of the electronic payment and Klaue refused to leave until he saw the transfer go through. He sat on the ground behind a partial concrete block wall and stared at his cell phone.

“If that fokker stiffed me...” He grumbled.

“Can we worry about that later?” Daggert asked.

“I'm gonna have to agree with Daggert on this one boss,” Chang said.

Daggert fired over the wall at one of rival gang. The thug had worked his way closer to them dodging in between small shipping containers that had been dumped at the site. Daggert's shot hit him square in the chest. The thug stumbled backwards, felt at the hole in his shirt, and heaved a sigh of relief.

“Just great,” Daggert said. He turned and yelled: “They're wearing vests! Head shots!”

Daggert stood back up long enough to fire another shot at the thug. The bullet ripped through the man's neck just under his jaw. The thug went down trying to stem the flow of blood—it was a futile effort.

“You didn't think they'd be wearing vests?” Klaue asked. He continued to stare at his phone.

“I was trying to be optimistic that this wouldn't be as much of a shit show as it's actually turning out to be,” Daggert replied. “This is going to be like Bucharest.”

He squat down next to Klaue.

“This is nothing like Bucharest,” Klaue told him.

Daggert reached over and forced Klaue's head to turn away from his phone and out towards the desert. A SHIELD Quinn jet landed. Before the tail was fully dropped, Natasha Romanoff jumped off the jet—quickly followed by SHIELD troops in full body armor. They were headed towards their client's rival and his men.

“Shit,” Chang said. He instantly looked up.

“Where's the other one!?” Klaue asked.

He swiveled his head up and scanned the tops of the two partial buildings, just like Chang was doing. Others followed suit.

“I don't see him,” Chang said.

“Find him!” Klaue ordered. “I'd like to not get turned in to a pin cushion by an Avenger again.”

“You know,” Daggert told him. “The Avengers didn't actually exist then, so he wasn't an Avenger at the...” He caught Klaue's look. “I'm just saying!” He shrugged. “NOW can we leave?”

“Is that Iron Man?” Chang pointed towards the sky.

They watched a form similar to that of Iron Man fly closer. But the suit was black and silver instead of the red and gold. He joined Romanoff's team and provided support from the air.

“Nope,” Daggert says. “That's that War Machine guy.”

“No matter,” Klaue put his phone away. “That's more than enough Avengers for me.”

They made a dash for the car while everyone's attention had turned to SHIELD's arrival. Klaue went wide away from his crew in order to scoop up one if their client's injured crewmen. The man was mid crawl towards a bullet spattered SUV when Klaue snatched him by the shirt collar and dragged him over to one of their vehicles. Daggert cursed and helped load the man into the back.

Chang drove the lead SUV out of the site. Klaue and Daggert's vehicle took the middle--with the injured man in their vehicle. The rest of the crew piled into the remaining SUV.

“Did we have anyone get hit?” Klaue asked Daggert.

Klaue's attention was turned to the windows as he spoke. He scanned the sky and tops of the buildings again.

“Perkins got hit in the leg,” Daggert told him. “Cash has some concrete shrapnel. Nothing serious though.”

“Good,” Klaue nodded to himself. He turned to the injured man. “You have a phone to call your boss?”

“Sí...yes,” he replied.

Klaue leaned closer to the man until their faces were inches apart. He sneered.

“Call him. Now. Tell him I want my money.”

“Yes, yes,” he told Klaue.

Klaue pulled his cell phone out and went back to watching his banking app. The crewman made the call. Seconds later he held his phone out to Klaue.

“Ja?” he said into the phone.

“I'm very sorry Señor Klaue,” his client said. “I'm sending it now. Everything went to...eh, what do they say...went to shit.”

Klaue's phone dinged. The transfer was complete. And $50,000.00 more than they had agreed on. Klaue smiled. He held the phone up so Daggert could see the screen. Daggert nodded and went back to keeping an eye on the sky and road around them.

“Well, that is much appreciated,” Klaue told their client. “Where do you want me to drop off your man here?”

“There's a clinic on your way back to port,” he said. “He can direct you there.”

“Right. Pleasure doing business with you,” Klaue told him.

 

“You never told me that story,” Klaue said to Daggert. “About how you found Hammond.”

They were on a catwalk that overlooked a small cargo hold. The crew had long finished getting things stowed away and, with SHIELD in such close proximity, had decided to skip hitting any local bars. They instead turned the small bay into its own bar. Chang and a few others had just returned with a resupply of liquor and a bevy of women they had picked up from who knows where—which resulted in Daggert taking two crewmen around and making sure everywhere they didn't need some stranger stumbling in to was locked up. Hammond and Perkins, who was now sporting crutches, were arguing over whose playlist to queue up next.

Klaue leaned against the railing, a beer in his hand. Daggert took a spot next to him. He leaned slightly over the rail and dropped his empty beer bottle into a metal drum that had been turned in to a trash can. Chang was near the can and jumped when the bottle landed in the can. Once he'd recovered, he pulled another beer from the open cooler nearby and held it up, eyebrow raised, towards Daggert. Daggert nodded. Chang tossed the bottle up at Daggert, who caught it easily. Chang pulled another bottle out and offered it to Klaue--who held up his nearly full beer and shook his head.

“Yeah, I keep forgetting,” Daggert replied. He chuckled at the thought of it as he twisted the cap off the beer and took a swig. “This happened back when we had that break in at the LA safe house,” he began.

“What happened with that anyway?” Klaue asked.

“They cut the power to get past the alarm, but they didn't count on our battery backup,” Daggert said. “We had them on camera though and would have handled it ourselves, but a neighbor saw people running and called the cops. Turned out there were four other break ins in the neighborhood. Cops wanted to see our camera, have a report filed, all that shit. Not a big deal, just a hassle.”

“What did we lose?”

“That house is clean, so all they got were some TV's and a couple game consoles,” Daggert said. “So, after we get it all taken care of we figured we're that close to Vegas, what the Hell let's go. Second night there, we'd worked our way down the Strip and were kind of working our way back up the other side to get back to the hotel when we get in to a big crowd and this kid bumps in to Chang. He apologizes and sort of disappears into the crowd. Chang feels for his wallet and it's not there. Now mind you, he didn't feel anything—he just knew the way the kid disappeared something was off. We start looking for him and luckily are able to pick him out of the crowd pretty quick. Chang catches up to him and is ready to hit him. The kid pulls out Chang's wallet and immediately gives it back to him. Shoves it right in to Chang's hands. He apologizes and begs not to get punched. Chang backs off and the kid takes off again. That's when Chang looks at his wallet.” Daggert laughed. “It ain't his wallet. Chang opens it and there's nothing in it but those little flyers the escort services hand out on the Strip. This time though, the kid is gone. We've got no idea where he went.”

“How'd you find him?” Klaue asked.

“Chang is walking up and down the street near the Mirage, cursing and this stripper, who's there passing out flyers for her club, asks if he had his pocket picked. Then she describes the kid. We're all nodding, and she tells us not to feel too bad because the kid has hit a lot of people on the Strip recently,” Daggert said. “Plus, it turns out she had also just called her boss because he'd been barred from their club for using stolen credit cards there. The police had extra attention on the club because of the cards getting used there. They thought the club was in on it. Her boss really wanted a piece of this kid too. We ask her if she has any idea who he is, and she says no. But when he first started coming in to the club and dropping serious money they had a bouncer take him home when he was too drunk at closing. They just knew the apartment complex and her boss had people staking that out.” 

“Let me guess,” Klaue said. “You went and staked the place out too?”

“Yes,” Daggert confirmed. “Except that instead of sitting out in the parking lot in a brand new shiny black Land Rover with tinted windows, we went around the back of the building and hung out along the fence that had multiple gaps in it. Kid about shit himself when we found him. It was hilarious...,” he chuckled again, “that look on his face. We'd watched him come through a gap and knock on one of the first-floor windows. While he was waiting for one of his roommates to open it we walked right up behind him.”

“And you just decided to recruit him instead of kicking his ass?” Klaue asked.

“Oh, no Chang still kicked his ass,” Daggert said. He laughed again. And then sighed. “But after we got a look at his living conditions...” he shrugged, “ten people in a two bedroom apartment with no water or electricity. Somebody had figured out how to wire car batteries up to power some things. And when he came home he had a couple gallons of water with him, plus food. No drugs, no booze, just water and food. The whole group needed help. Most of them just wanted to earn enough money to go back to wherever they came from. Just a bunch of dumb damn kids...”

“How much money did you spend?” Klaue asked.

“Enough for nine bus tickets,” Daggert said. He shrugged again. “We offered him a ticket too and found out he was from there in Vegas. His Mom was still there too, but wherever she's living...sounded like she was sharing a place with a bunch of other people too and he couldn't live with them. I don't know...I guess I just felt bad for him, so I offered him a job. Took him under my wing. Kind of like you did with me.”

“That is a good story,” Klaue admitted. “Hey, did they ever catch the guys who broke in to the safe house?”

“Nope, not that I know of,” Daggert said. “The police were staking things out, but they didn't hit the neighborhood anymore.”

“Crazy,” Klaue said.

“What do you mean?” Daggert asked.

Daggert glanced over at Klaue and then turned his attention to Hammond.

“That neighborhood never had any issues. It's one of the reasons we picked it. And then all of a sudden there's a string of break ins,” Klaue said.

“Where's this going?” Daggert asked.

He turned to get a better look at Klaue.

“Every time we're in LA we always end up making a side trip to Vegas,” Klaue said. “And then you just happen to run in to this kid. And happen to find of stripper who can steer you in his direction...”

“I'm not gonna like this, am I?” Daggert asked.

“No,” Klaue.

“Damn it,” Daggert sighed.

Klaue backed away from the railing and cocked his head towards the hatch that led out onto the deck before he walked away. Daggert took one more look down into the hold. Hammond and Perkins laughed at something and followed that up with playful shoves. Daggert drained his beer and threw the bottle down towards the can. He didn't bother to see if it went in. The heavy clang it made as it hit drew a few glances, but Daggert was already out the door onto the deck.

Inside the office off the back of the bridge, Klaue had retrieved the laptop he'd been reading background checks on from a safe in the corner behind his desk. He had it open to Hammond's background check by the time Daggert arrived. Klaue gestured at the laptop. Daggert moved over to Klaue's desk and leaned down over the laptop. He squinted at the screen as he read.

“Shit!” Daggert said. He was still hunched down over the laptop. “He's a damn Blont!?”

“Aaron Blont's kid to be specific,” Klaue said. “I guess he's finally making good on his threat to kill me.”

“Doesn't make sense though,” Daggert stood up and rubbed his face with both hands. “That was years ago and he hasn't done shit. A couple decades ago! Why now? Plus…I'm going to be honest with you...when we were in Symkaria he had plenty of opportunity to take you out and bail before anyone else would have known you were dead. I mean, one of the first things we trained him on there was the security system. There's cash on hand there...he could have bribed his way out if he needed to.”

Klaue paced.

“Perhaps,” Klaue said. He'd pulled out his cell phone and tapped it against his chin as he continued to pace. “But why else would he be here? Why would he go to so much trouble to get himself in to the crew?”

“You really think he orchestrated everything?” Daggert asked. “The break ins? The stripper knowing just where to send us? That's a lot work. He's not dumb, but I can't see him putting something like that together.”

“It doesn't have to be his plan now does it?” Klaue said.

Daggert leaned back over the laptop and scrolled back to the top of the report. He pulled the chair out from behind the desk and sat down. Klaue texted Chang to send Hammond up to the office.

“I'm getting some answers,” he told Daggert.

“Don't get too jumpy about this,” Daggert replied.

“I know you like the kid, but we can't ignore this,” Klaue told him.

“I'm not saying ignore it,” Daggert said. “I'm saying we need to do a little more recon before you go terminating his employment over the side of the ship in the middle of the ocean.”

“I've only ever done that once,” Klaue said. He thought for a second. “Twice.”

“Four times,” Daggert corrected.

“Really?” Klaue asked.

He scratched at his chin with his cell phone again and then held up one finger. He was about to say something. There was a knock at the door. Daggert began to stand, but Klaue waved him off. He tossed his cell phone on his desk and went for the door. He yanked it open.

“You wanted to see me boss?” Hammond smiled at Klaue.

“Yeah, come on in,” Klaue said.

Klaue stepped aside and let the kid through. Before Hammond made it two steps past him, Klaue had the door shut and reached back for Hammond. In one swift move he'd wrapped his hand around the kid's throat, dragged him backwards, and slammed him against the closed door.

Klaue kept his grip tight around Hammond's throat. Hammond reached up and pulled at Klaue's hand. Klaue growled. Hammond let go and threw both hands up in the air. He tried to force words out. All that came out were gasps and squeaks. Klaue let his grip loosen some. Hammond was smart enough to keep his hands up and not try to move.

“Wha...what did I do?” Hammond forced the words out.

“You're Aaron Blont's kid,” Klaue said. “I guess Daddy finally decided to make good on his threat to kill me. How is dear old Dad these days anyway?”

“He's not my father,” Hammond managed to get out, “and he's dead by the way.”

“What!?” Klaue and Daggert both said it together.

Klaue let go of Hammond's throat. He grabbed the front of the kid's shirt and wrapped it around his first before steering the younger man over to a beat up love seat in the corner of his office. He shoved Hammond onto the couch. Hammond kept his hands up the entire time.

“Start talking,” Klaue said. His face had gone red. “Specifically start with what you're doing here, because that's not a coincidence. Sit jou verdomde hande neer!”

Hammond looked between Klaue and Daggert. Klaue had gone back to pacing. Daggert sighed.

“He said put your damn hands down,” Daggert told Hammond.

Hammond dropped both hands into his lap. He moved them so each one rested, palms down and fingers wide, on his upper legs.

“I'm not hearing any talking!” Klaue yelled.

Hammond cleared his throat.

“I'm here because you hate the Blont's as much as my Mom and I do,” he said.

“According to this,” Daggert pointed at the laptop, “you are a Blont and up until two years ago your last name was Blont. You legally changed it when you turned 18.”

“Why?” Klaue asked.

“I told you, Aaron Blont isn't my father,” Hammond said. “Once he knew that he cut me and my Mom off. I changed my name as soon as I could.”

“How'd he find out you weren't his?” Klaue asked.

“One of Andrew's kids had leukemia a few years back,” Hammond said. “Everybody in the family got tested to see if we could donate bone marrow. Turns out I'm not remotely biologically related to them and the doctor told my d...Aaron.”

“And your Mum didn't think you getting tested was a bad idea?” Klaue asked.

“Apparently she was pretty sure I was his,” Hammond said. He shrugged. “Turns out she was wrong.”

“Where did Hammond come from?” Daggert asked. “Wait...hang on...” Daggert scrolled through the report. “Lydia Hammond is your mother!? Didn't you catch that when you read the report?” He asked Klaue.

Daggert stared at Klaue—who had suddenly stopped pacing. He turned to look at Daggert and then at Hammond.

“Lydia,” Klaue said. 

“Uh...yeah,” Hammond said. “Wait you know who my Mom is?”

“I didn't really get past seeing he was a Blont actually,” Klaue said. “And yes, I know who your Mum is.”

“Know...” Daggert tried not to laugh.

Klaue shot him a look.

“Your Mum worked some jobs with us back in the day,” Klaue told him. “Something Blont didn't much care for.”

Daggert launched into hysterical laughter. Klaue grumbled.

“Why is he laughing,” Hammond asked. 

“I'm wondering the same thing myself,” Klaue said. “What is so funny about this?”

“Jesus Christ no wonder I felt like I needed to babysit him. How did I not see that!?” Daggert managed to get out.

He gestured between Klaue and Hammond. Klaue looked at Hammond and shook his head.

“There's no way...” He said to Daggert.

“Please don't tell me you and my Mom,” Hammond began shaking his head. “...you hooked up...with...my...Mom...you and my...no, no way...”

“So.” Daggert still couldn't stop laughing. He wiped tears away. “Who's you Daddy?”

He doubled over in his chair from the laughter.

“She wouldn't tell me...” Hammond stopped and let his jaw drop as it hit him. He looked at Daggert, who was still laughing, and then to Klaue who had leaned back against the bulk head, still shaking his own head. “Are you fucking kidding me!?” Hammond asked.

He jumped up out of his seat.

“There's no way...” Klaue repeated.

“He's 20,” Daggert said. He broke in to fresh round of laughter. “There's a way.” He looked at Hammond. “So, you had no idea?”

“NO!”

Hammond began to pace. It was impressively close to the way Klaue tended to pace, right down to tapping at his chin—a move that didn’t go unnoticed by both Klaue and Daggert. Klaue continued to mutter that there wasn't a way. Daggert nearly fell out of his chair laughing.


End file.
